Monday, June 9, 2008

Tinqui, South of Cusco

For the Choquequirao Trek, we took a four hour bus ride from Cusco to Cachora (north of Cusco), where the trek started and finished. Likewise for our second trek, we had a four hour bus ride to the small village of Tinqui south of Cusco at the end of the bus route. In the evening our two guides took us to a local eatery for dinner. The place was packed with road construction workers and a table was set up for us in what turned out to be the pantry or larder. Yes, that is a pig carcass behind Heather on the shelf in the photo ! What the photo does not show is that there was a female dog nursing her pups on the floor below the carcass. The food was okay but our appetites vanished. We are just not used to the rough and simple lifestyles of these rural people. We slept that night in a sparse second floor room on camping mats. The room had a great view of the local soccer pitch and the snow covered mountains in the background, and earlier in the evening we had watched the games. When the young men and boys took a break from their game, the women and girls took over the pitch. It was an unusual sight to see them playing in their full traditional skirts.